photo
caption:A MEMENTO FOR A SOLDIER FROM
HIS GIRL: Ada (Nicole Kidman,left) hands Inman (Jude Law) a likeness
of herself on the eve of his departure to fight in the Civil War.end
caption.

Cold
Mountain: Nicole Kidman and Jude Law Star in an Epic Civil
War Film

The English Patient swept the Academy Awards
in 1997, taking home a total of 9 Oscars, including gilded statuettes
for Best Picture and Best Director. Set in the waning days of
World War II, the 2 hour and 40 minute epic, told in a series
of flashbacks, centered on the plight and passions of a seriously
wounded soldier stuck in an Italian monastery. Written and directed
by Anthony Minghella, the love story was loosely-based on the
celebrated best-seller of the same name by Michael Ondaatje.

Given
the phenomenal successful of that endeavor, one cannot fault Mr.
Minghella for subsequently acquiring the rights to Cold Mountain,
which won the National Book Award the same year. This 356 page
Civil War opus by Charles Frazier echoed many of the same themes
as The English Patient. Its protagonist, Inman, is a love-struck
Confederate soldier who embarks on an odyssey worthy of Homer,
dragging his bullet-ridden body back to Carolina in search of
his sweetheart Ada.

In bringing this romance novel to the
big screen, Minghella follows the same formula which worked for
him before, adapting his source material into a 2 hour 35 minute
melodrama replete with sweeping panoramas, slow-motion flashbacks
and mushy-dialogue. But that's about where the similarities end,
since Cold Mountain is a love story likely to leave you
cold.

The problems with the productions are plentiful, starting
with the casting of Nicole Kidman and Jude Law in the lead roles
of Ada and Inman, respectively. Not only are this classy Australian
and proper British gentleman a tad too refined to be taken seriously
as Southerners, the pair share so few scenes together that they
never get a chance to develop any chemistry.

Worse, they
are both frequently upstaged by the far more colorful antics of
supporting characters, most notably Renee Zellweger, who is adorable
as twangy tomboy Ruby Thewes, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as philandering
Reverend Veasey. The talented cast also includes Donald Sutherland,
Natalie Portman, and Giovanni Ribisi.

Much like Odysseus
wandering home after the Trojan War, Inman overcomes a bizarre
assortment of ordeals while making the 300-mile trek across the
war-ravaged South. Along the way, he encounters witches, escaped
slaves, siren-like seductresses, bounty hunters, a single-mom,
a man of the cloth, friends, and even enemies. Meanwhile, back
atop Cold Mountain, Ada's burden is almost as arduous, after her
abolitionist preacher father dies, leaving his prim and proper
once-privileged daughter with no slaves to work the spacious plantation.

I
frequently found aspects of the politically corrected plotline
confusing, since it makes it awfully hard to remember which side,
the North or the South, was the one opposed to slavery. Revisionist
history and an unconvincing romance aside, this colossal costume
drama is further complicated by the fact that it was shot almost
entirely on location in Romania. While that steep, eastern European
countryside is undeniable breathtaking, in my mind it looks nothing
like Carolina. Cold Mountain comes heavily-laden with bluegrass
and blood and guts, but otherwise it's just not authentic enough
to garner my recommendation.